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Debate Over Intelligent Design Ensnares a Journal

According to one cynical view, academic disputes are so vicious only because the stakes are so low. Yet as the editors of Synthese, a leading philosophy journal, can tell you, what they publish matters: in debates over Christianity, the teaching of evolution, and American politics.

This story began in March 2009, when a special issue of Synthese was published online, titled “Evolution and Its Rivals.”

It was guest-edited by Glenn Branch, deputy director of the National Center for Science Education, and James H. Fetzer, a former editor of the journal. They included an essay by Barbara Forrest, of Southeastern Louisiana University, condemning the work of the philosopher Francis J. Beckwith, who believes it is constitutionally permissible, although not advisable, to teach intelligent design in public schools.

But Dr. Beckwith says he is no ally of the intelligent design movement, whose mainly Christian proponents argue that certain features of the universe are best explained by a “designer,” perhaps a god or deity, rather than by natural selection or other scientific theories.

In her essay, Dr. Forrest, known for her opposition to intelligent design, argued that Dr. Beckwith made many of intelligent design’s conceptual mistakes, and “presents I.D. exactly as I.D. leaders do.”

In language some would later criticize as unfit for a scholarly journal, Dr. Forrest also questioned Dr. Beckwith’s qualifications, writing that he takes positions on church/state issues but has “no formal credentials as a constitutional scholar.” She suggested connections between Dr. Beckwith and intelligent design theorists and the marginal, far-right Christian Reconstructionists, who believe that a theocracy under Old Testament law is the best form of government.

In January, two years after the Synthese issue went online, the print version finally appeared — containing an addition, an unusual statement from the journal’s main editors (not the guest editors). In it, they commented on the tone of the issue, a move that appeared to undermine Dr. Forrest and the guest editors who had solicited her piece.

“We have observed,” begins the note from Johan van Benthem, Vincent F. Hendricks and John F. Symons, the journal’s editors, “that some of the papers in this issue employ a tone that may make it hard to distinguish between dispassionate intellectual discussion of other views and disqualification of a targeted author or group.”

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Barbara Forrest, a professor.

The editors refer to “some of the papers,” but many concluded that it was Dr. Forrest’s critique of Dr. Beckwith, a professor at Baylor University, that made them uncomfortable.

So what happened, in the two years between the article’s appearance online and in print, to give the editors pause?

Dr. Forrest has said that after the online publication the editors asked if she would soften her tone, but she said no, then heard nothing more. Some wondered if, in the lag between online and print publication, the intelligent design community had pressured the editors to apologize.

Last month, the philosopher Brian Leiter published on his blog a letter from Mr. Branch and Dr. Fetzer, the guest editors, who angrily wrote that they had not been consulted about the unusual statement in the print edition.

“We are both shocked and chagrined,” they write, “that a journal of Synthese’s stature should have sunk so low as to violate the canons of responsible editorial practice as the result of lobbying by a handful of ideologues.”

Dr. Leiter titled his blog post “Synthese Editors Cave in to Pressure from the Intelligent Design Lobby: Philosophers Should Boycott Synthese.” The next week he linked to a petition demanding that Synthese’s editors “disclose the nature of complaints and/or legal threats from Francis Beckwith, his supporters, and supporters of intelligent design” that they received after publishing the special issue.

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In an interview Thursday, Dr. van Benthem said he and his co-editors had “received some messages that could be interpreted as legal threats,” but not from Christian philosophers. He added that another article in the issue concerned them in addition to Dr. Forrest’s and moreover that their statement was an endorsement of civility, not intelligent design.

Dr. Forrest said this week that she suspected that intelligent design theorist William A. Dembski “was involved in this, because his work was mentioned” in her article, too. Reached by phone, Dr. Dembski said that he had not contacted Synthese and knew of no specific campaign to influence the journal.

“I presume there was some pressure put on them, but where that came from I do not know,” Dr. Dembski said.

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Glenn Branch, a guest editor.

Three philosophers have, however, admitted to contacting the editors who issued the quasi-apology for Dr. Forrest’s article. One is the Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga, of Notre Dame, who recalled sending an e-mail to the editors two years ago.

“I thought her article didn’t measure up to the usual academic standards of Synthese at all,” he said on Thursday. “It was heavy on character assassination and innuendo and light on anything Beckwith ever said.”

In May 2009, the Calvin College philosopher Kelly James Clark also wrote to Synthese. “I reject intelligent design and I don’t think it should be taught in the schools in the U.S.,” he said in an e-mail dated May 5, 2009. Like Dr. Plantinga, Dr. Clark accused Synthese of “character assassination.”

Dr. Beckwith, the article’s subject, also wrote to the editors in 2009.

“For a couple of days, I was really depressed,” he said by telephone. He was baffled by what he felt were ad hominem attacks, and what he saw as guilt by association. (He says he has nothing to do with Christian Reconstructionists, for example.) He wrote a letter to the editors, but said he never asked anyone else to complain on his behalf. “I don’t know these guys well, but to have philosophers of that stature come to your defense — I was blown away by that.”

Lately, Dr. Beckwith has been avoiding the dispute. “I gave up Googling my name for Lent,” he said.

Mr. Branch, one of the guest editors, said he knew of at least one philosopher who had withdrawn a paper from Synthese because of the controversy. Dr. Fetzer, the other guest editor, is still indignant over how Dr. Forrest was treated.

The dispute has titillated bloggers on both sides of the issue, in the Christian, secular humanist and academic camps. Some defenders of Dr. Beckwith have enjoyed noting that Dr. Fetzer’s well-publicized conspiratorial view that the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks were “a staged event arranged especially by neocons with the complicity of the Mossad to galvanize the American people in support of wars of aggression for the sake of oil, Israel and ideology.”

(Asked if he shared his co-editor’s views, Mr. Branch said he did not.)

Dr. Forrest, whose essay began it all, was sounding a bit philosophical. Last week, she was visiting a friend at Stanford, where Dr. van Benthem teaches. She could have knocked on his door.

“I deliberately did not go and talk to him,” Dr. Forrest said, “because I did not want him to feel I was pressuring him.”

“I figured that he’s under a lot of pressure. But he made a mistake.”

MarkOppenheimer.com;twitter/markopp1

A version of this article appears in print on May 14, 2011, on Page A20 of the New York edition with the headline: Debate Over Intelligent Design Ensnares a Journal. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe